Sonic

I was at a chinese restaurant and I heard a guy tell his buddy "hey they are going to remove YouTube off the air man, and you have to pay to watch it".

I think he was talking about the FCC net neutrality crap that will change things around.

Which made me think of the question...would you pay a fee to watch YouTube?

As for me my answer is HELL NO. I could care less about YouTube even though I have gotten some enjoyment out of it but not to the point where it will change my life or steer me to boredom if I no longer have access to it.

Kurt D

fffuck no

fumanstan

Nah. The only thing I really use it for are movie trailers and music videos, and I imagine if the service turned to pay only that movie studios would find another avenue to distribute movie trailers. Like Apple Quicktime!

Nick Danger

I don't pay to watch TV. Why would I pay to watch a small choppy video?

D.Pham5GLTE (>60GB)

I pay $5/mo for youtube red.

GoldenJCJ

I hardly watch it now for free. Can’t imagine I would miss it much if it went to a pay site.

lwhy?

It would depend on how much. I would pay $5 a month, but not anything more than that. I have a few people that I subscribe to on YouTube and watch their content frequently. I usually watch YouTube via my Roku in the living room when I'm bored.

Michael Corvin

Simple. Hell no.

What's it like in 2005? Did you like Revenge of the Sith? I can't believe Padme just lost the will to live. That doesn't even make sense with what Leia said in Retun of the Jedi.

TheBigDave

I pay $10 a month for Youtube Red. How are you getting it for $5?

I watch Youtube every day on my TV, so it's worth $10/month to get rid of all the commercials.

cultshock

As a music fan, I love YT. Lots of concert footage, older promo videos and musician interviews, etc. I've found video clips that I never thought I'd see again in a million years. Just for that I'd throw them a few bucks a month (but admittedly, not much more than that).

cultshock

I've seen some great HD video footage on YouTube that looks very good even on my 70" TV.

Michael T Hudson

This.

DJariya

Did you just wake up from 2001?

YouTube now has HD and 4K video. Many of the videos on there are professionally produced with high end camera equipment and graphics.

D.Pham5GLTE (>60GB)

There was a deal where you could gift Google play music and YouTube red for half price, so $5 for a month. I gifted myself 5 years worth of Google Play Music /YouTube red.

DJariya

There’s a lot of great content on YouTube if you know what you’re looking for.

I’ve used it for travel videos, tech videos, reviews, demonstrations. Not everything on YouTube is attention seeking idiots, trailers, reaction videos, and music videos.

I’m currently on a free trial of YouTube Red and while I’ve enjoyed not having ads, I’m not sure I have the budget to pay the $10 per month for it. I already pay for Netflix, Hulu, CBS All Access and Amazon Prime for content. That’s already close to $45 per month for that alone.

I watch YouTube all the time for the content I’m interested in and need for research, but I think I can deal it’s short commercials.

kd5

What Nick said.

andicus

Same here.

zyzzle

Hell no. The signal to noise ratio on Youtube is ridiculously low as it is, maybe 5% of the content is actually useful, and I'm being more than generous.

I'd sooner pay an ingenious hacker to figure out how to get some free hacked accounts than pay another colossal monster conglamorate (= Google = Youtube, my ISP, et al) a dime of my hard-earned cash.

Michael Corvin

Oh it's gotta be waaaay less than 5%. 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute according to Google.

TheBigDave

I was a big fan of old school Travel Channel, Food Network and TechTV. Back then, the Travel Channel would actually visit interesting places around the world. Food Network had cooking shows with recipes that normal people could make at home. And TechTV had a lot of fun tech/gaming related shows.

But these days, Travel Channel is just guys traveling to local diners and stuffing their faces. Food Network is full of chef competitions with food I would never make. And TechTV is long gone.

Youtube is full of excellent travel, cooking and tech/gaming shows. Some of them are professionally produced. But these days, even the amateur stuff looks professional. People really put a lot of effort into making interesting content that looks good.

DJariya

Agree. There is some really great travel content on YouTube as opposed to Travel Channel. One of my favorite travel vloggers is named Mark Wiens and he’s an American based in Thailand. He produces really high end TV quality shows 25-30 minutes each two times per week dealing with food and culture. He travels all over Asia and has traveled all over Europe and shoots and edits everything by himself.

TheBigDave

Thanks for the heads up. I just subscribed.

If you like Japanese Food & Travel, check out Abroad In Japan and TabiEats.

Kurt D

I wish you hadn't reminded me of this. Seen some great Lindsey Buckingham performances lately that I would never have seen otherwise. Brought joy to my heart.


But still ...

Mike86

It depends on how much it would be. I watch a lot of YouTube so I wouldn’t oppose it entirely. Right now I’m nearing the end of a three month trial of YouTube Red. It’s been really nice to not have ads but I’m not sure if that benefit along with the YouTube Red original shows are worth paying for.

I watch a lot of reviewers, some vloggers, a couple video podcasts, some gaming news/streams, and other random things. Truthfully I probably watch YouTube more than Netflix so I’ve thought about dropping Netflix and just going with a YouTube Red subscription.

Dan

If the actual creators of the actual videos I watched were getting at least 70% of the cash, sure. I'd pay. But that's not happening, so fuck any sort of additional fee.